


To tempt fate

by FreeShavocadoo



Category: The Expanse (TV)
Genre: Introspection, M/M, Moderate depictions of violence, Weird Relationship Dynamics, unconventional romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-02
Updated: 2018-08-02
Packaged: 2019-06-20 18:12:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15540063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FreeShavocadoo/pseuds/FreeShavocadoo
Summary: Amos Burton can't really find an explanation for Prax. He doesn't think he'd want to, anyway.





	To tempt fate

Friendship was a foreign concept to Amos Burton. The idea of wasting your time trying to constantly regulate yourself to someone else’s emotions seemed too tiring, the need to please others and put yourself in harms way for them seems pointless. Energy, Amos thinks, is much better spent on other tasks. People were always bound to die, there was little that would be solved by stopping your life and crying about it. Death was by all accounts, inevitable and welcome. It was a cruel life and only those who fought tooth and nail were bound to find purchase in something, gripping onto whatever they could to make their temporary lives worth living. For Holden, it was a justifiable cause, making right out of a wrong. For Naomi it was breaking free from chains of oppression, from accepting who she was and who she is as the same. Alex wanted to live a life not forged from necessity or from propaganda, but one that was spontaneous, with people that he could care about equally. For Amos, it was always about just surviving, surviving the way he had done since he was a boy. With little regard for other people and their futile fantasies of perfection. Until Prax.

The man that carried his heart on his sleeve but was as frank as he was eccentric, just as likely to tell you that you were completely wrong about something as he was to compare you to an obscure plant. He was a welcome addition to the Roci, offering a unique insight even if its delivery tended to be lacking in complete clarification or conciseness. Then again, a man who was more content to feel the soil beneath his fingertips with his nose an inch from a plants leaf was hardly going to be one that could partake in regular conversation, not that Amos was the best judge of such a thing. His honesty was alluring in a way, having told Amos with completely raw emotion that having a daughter with so many medical problems was a burden, a heavy one. Amos finds it oddly comforting, that someone who cares so much can still admit they too have limits. Even when Prax’s eyes can’t seem to leave his daughters backpack at night, clouded with intense emotion even though his face is passive. As though focusing on one is too hard for him. When Amos reminds himself of the three kinds of people in the world it’s easy to see which Prax is. Not bad, not someone to follow. He’s someone to be protected.

It's not the things that break you that you need to look out for, after all.

Like the plants that Prax is so fond of, he practically inches himself over Amos until it’s like Amos can no longer breathe. It’s easy to struggle against such things unless you have the good sense to just leave them be. There are worse things to let yourself be influenced by. Prax was always gentle, even with Amos. Gentleness was a type of touch Amos had never deliberately been given, always dealt the same things he dealt out. Violence, mistrust and indifference. People don’t understand what it takes to reach a limit, until they are willing to ask someone else to stretch over the limits for them. Amos might be the finger on the trigger but Prax was the ground beneath his feet. Even if he stumbled, the ground was always there to catch him. It was Amos’ actions that dictated if he were to fall or be caught.

“He’s my best friend in the whole world.” Prax says, like Amos is suddenly the soil beneath his fingertips, like he’s worth everything and not just good for something. Prax’s desperation had been intoxicating, in a way, to Amos. Amos was desperate himself after all, although he hadn’t known for what until those words had left Prax’s mouth and Mei’s tiny hand had slid into his, like it belonged there. Amos had never felt any desire to have children, not with the life he’d lead or the things he’d seen and done. But when he stares into Mei’s soft eyes, her trusting stare, all of his walls crumble until there’s nothing left. Prax wasn’t Amos and Amos wasn’t Prax. That much was evident when Dr Strickland’s brains splattered on the window behind him, when Amos walked out and closed the doors behind him, making sure he had no blood on his hands when he takes Mei’s small hand once more.

“Stay.” Prax says, standing on Ganymede, the dome he’d once spent the majority of his time in standing half collapsed behind him, a memory of what it was, with reconstruction being as slow and painstaking of a process as having Prax’s brown eyes staring at him, wanting, needing. It’s not like Amos could refuse him, even if he wanted to.

“Okay.” He replies, taking Prax’s hand in his own and pressing his lips against Prax’s fingers. It’s the most natural thing in the world, to Amos, especially when Prax turns and kisses his cheek in return, as though this behaviour is normal for the two of them. In retrospect Amos supposes it is, they both need someone and now they have someone. Mei leaps between them both, grabbing one of Prax’s hands and one of Amos’, swinging happily and humming under her breath.

Amos doesn’t know what he did to deserve this, but he wasn’t about to tempt fate by asking.

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah, this is a pairing I couldn't ignore. It's just too sweet for me to handle.


End file.
